The Scribe

were captured and executed as witches. Their families were devastated, and their mates often took revenge, killing the ignorant who had murdered their wives. Inevitably, innocents were killed, too. The council finally made the decision to isolate families so the Irina and the children could be better protected.”

“The council?”

The two had stopped near a depiction of an ominous Gothic building.

“The Irin council is in Vienna.” Rhys smiled and nodded at the Gothic building. “Everyone has their politicians, don’t they? They are ours. Once it was made up of seven scribes and seven singers—”

“Singers?”

“Irina.” He smiled again. “Their magic is in their voice. The oldest and wisest Irina would sing—” His voice broke. “The most beautiful, powerful music you can imagine. Ethereal. Their voices are magic. The council was always even, but once they had decided that families needed to stay in the retreats… there was conflict. Many of the Irina felt as if they were being punished for their sisters’ deaths. Many didn’t want to be isolated in the retreats. Eventually, though, it settled down. The Irin and Irina who were mated—particularly those with children—would live in retreats. Irin without mates, or with mates who were in study and meditation, worked among the humans or manned the scribe houses that preserved ancient knowledge.” He gestured around them. “Like this one. The Irin worked here. The retreats—small villages, really—were for families. There were also other Irina compounds where they went to train and study, but Irin weren’t allowed there, so I know little of those. I was raised in a retreat in Cornwall.”

“And Malachi?”

“He was born near here, actually.” Rhys smiled. “Though I believe his parents moved when he was still a child and were living in Germany when the Rending happened.”

“The Rending.”

“Yes… the Rending.” Rhys nudged her farther down the hall as his inner voice took on a low, desperate tone. “One summer, there was a sudden rash of Grigori attacks in the cities. We learned later that it all happened within just a few weeks, but at the time, we had no idea. I was in London, about one hundred years old. I’d finished my training and was doing guardian work, as we all do. The Grigori, who had been relatively quiet for years, started attacking many human women. It was unexpected, and we couldn’t keep up. We’d let our guard down.” He let out a shaky breath. “My watcher followed protocol. When we needed help, we called for the mated men to come help us. They left the retreats to aid us in the city, because that was where the threat lay… we thought.”

They took another step down the hall, and Ava saw the edge of chaos.

She whispered, “But they left the Irina in the retreats alone.”

“Irina…” Rhys’s fingers came up to trace the image of a woman, arms stretched out as dark figures ran toward her. “…have frightening magic of their own. Powerful. Deadly. But they were outnumbered, and they had to protect the children.” Ava felt the tears wet her cheeks as she watched him trail his hands over the scenes of carnage the artist had rendered in frightening detail.

Bodies broken on the ground.

Homes burning.

Children’s toys, bloody and abandoned.

Rhys stopped in front of the depiction of another woman, this one with a fearful gash on her throat. Rhys’s finger traced down the woman’s face, lingering near her neck as if to cover the wound. “Grigori will go for the throat first. If an Irina cannot speak, most of her magic is rendered mute as well. Their voices are…” Ava saw him blink away tears. “The Grigori soldiers overran retreats all over the world. The Irina protected as many children as they could, but most didn’t survive. The girls, especially, were hunted.”

A rushing began to fill her mind. Ava could almost hear it. Hear the voices of the women, silenced forever. Their children, cries cut short by murder. A terrible pain began to throb in her chest.

“How many?” she whispered.

Rhys shook his head. “No one knows for certain. Thousands. It was a coordinated effort on the part of the Grigori to render us weak. They know we are most powerful when we are mated. And they have always feared the voices of the Irina. They fear magic they don’t understand. So, they killed them. As many as they could, along with most of the children and the men who had stayed behind.”

Ava felt the trembling start in her legs.

“The council estimates eighty percent of our women and children were wiped out within a matter of weeks in the summer of 1810. Our race was cut in half. That’s why we call it the Rending.”

The shaking grew. The horror was too much. The loss—barely comprehensible.

They halted at the end of the hall where a tapestry hung, woven with the same circle of Irin and Irina depicted in the book Malachi had shown her. But instead of a couple embracing, the tapestry was torn down the middle, forming a kind of curtain that Rhys pulled back.

Behind it, there were more words, written in the ancient script.

“These are names of the Irina and children from the retreat nearby,” Rhys whispered. He pointed to one near the top. “This was Evren’s wife.”

Ava stifled a cry. Hundreds of names followed that first one. Column after column of names. Some worn smooth by fingers rubbing over them. Others sharp and jagged, as if the stone still held the anger of two hundred years.

She felt rage bubble up along with a primal grief she could barely comprehend. Words caught in her throat, and her hands clenched, her fingernails digging into her palms till she could feel the skin break and the blood run. She felt powerless. Strangled by her own pain. By Rhys’s pain. By the pain lurking beneath every face she’d seen. She shook with it, knowing she was crying, but the tears weren’t enough.

“Ava?” Rhys’s voice seemed to come from a distance. “Ava, are you all right?”

Don’t speak. Can’t speak. Never speak again.

Shaking her head, Ava pulled her hair and closed her eyes. She dug her fingers into her temple, relieved by the bite of pain. Her tear-filled eyes rose to the wall of names, but there was only silence.

And Ava knew.

These were her people. And they were gone.

“No,” she whispered.

The shivering took over, starting in her chest and spreading to her limbs. Her mind flew in a thousand directions as she closed her eyes again and rocked.

“Ava?”

She felt Rhys’s hand on her shoulder. He tried to put an arm around her, but she shoved him back.

“No!”

“Ava, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—”

Rhys broke off at the unexpected cry of grief that came from her throat. It was a groan. A shout. It was everything her soul didn’t have the words to express. Ava leaned against the far wall, staring at the mosaic, feeling her legs start to give out. She felt locked in a pain she couldn’t escape.

And then she felt him. Felt him running toward her. Heard his footsteps coming down the hall.

Closer.

“What did you do?” he shouted.

“She asked! Was I not supposed to tell her the truth?”

A shove. A punch. Ava reached out, her eyes still closed, grasping for something she couldn’t name yet.

Hands met hers. Arms encircled her. And the calm followed. The rage fled, and in its wake was a fierce grief for a thousand faces she would never know. A thousand voices she would never hear. Ava held on to Malachi and wept for a loss her mind could barely comprehend. He lifted her and took her away from the hall. Away from the flickering candles and the bloody stones. Ava closed her eyes and let him take her away.

“So many dead.” She closed her eyes and whispered into his skin.

“I know.”

“Women like me. They hated them. They killed them. Because they were afraid.”

They were sitting in a quiet corner of the scribe house, in a room she hadn’t seen before. Low lights